I played Sims 3 religiously for years until about six months ago when my computer crashed and I lost all my custom content, mods etc. Losing everything was such a turnoff that I simply gave up on the game for the longest time. But then, last week, I remembered that I had the Sims 2 Ultimate Collection from when EA was giving it away and I thought, well ... why not? It costs me nothing to try.

The Sims' interactivity and AI seems miles above their Sims 3 equivalents. Sure, the 3s are better at seeing to basic needs, but compared to the 2s, they're antisocial and lackluster. The 2s are just ... far more alive and unique. Each seems to have its own personality and attitude. This is a big deal, because I used to get bored with a Sims 3 family the instant it was settled financially and ready to just lie back and live life -- watching them antisocially potter about and visit empty venues just didn't do it for me. Time to start another family, build another house. In Sims 2, there seems to be always something to watch, whether it's sims fighting, falling in love, or just hanging out in a corner talking about their hobbies. I'm starting to understand why this game still has custom content produced and a loyal following despite being 15 years old.

I thought the load screens would kill me but in fact, they have not. Of course, the game being as old as it is, it loads stupid fast on a modern computer. But still, I can live with the idea of them, even when one thing I loved about Sims 3 was the open world. So now I am wondering -- should I go ahead and purchase Sims 4?

Well, actually ... should I go ahead and purchase the rest of Sims 4? I do have the vanilla game but I never got any of the expacs and stuff packs because the AI of it annoyed me to kingdom come. It seemed cartoony and repetitive and of course, there was the whole deal about missing toddlers and pools. But maybe these issues of lazy programming and bad business choices have been fixed after a few years?

Convince me to stick with Sims 2 and not waste my money on a game that I will get disappointed with, even if it has super sweet graphics compared to Sims 2's rather 2004 look. :lovestruc

Edited to add: It seems to confuse some posters why I am posting here, so let me clarify. I am not looking for the Sims 4 official hype. I can get that anywhere on the net. I am looking for the opinions of the steadfast, loyal Sims 2 players to tell me why they prefer this game over the newer incarnations. My choice of forum is not an accident.

Not the best forum section to post such a thread, because 80% is obviously made up pf players that are only sticked or fond with TS2. Small nitpick, but I think this should be moved to TS4 or at least copy pasted there to get the response from both sides.

Point being, only a minority of TS4 causual players would have a tendency to visit this forum or of other sim titles.

Speaking of that, If you really find out the reception of the game, be sure ask and look around through other forms of media: the official forums, fanbase facebook groups, youtube reviews (I suggest LGR channel) gameplays, walkthroughts, let's plays, rant, overview and ect. Should to get basic picture and premise on how TS4 is doing.


As for my response/opinion, you shouldn't bother buying expansion If you still encounter issues with the latest update of the base game. Expqnsion packs and other dlc shouldn't fix the broken mechanics of the core base game (A.I.), they should be patched in the BASE GAME where they should belong. I wouldn't support such practice.

I actually made the decision to post here because I -want- to hear the Sims 2 players' views. I can find the hype for 4 anywhere. The opinions of the 2 players, on the other hand, are few and rare in between.

I had pretty much the same experience moving from 3 back to 2 a couple years back. I'd stayed with 2 mostly originally because 3 was lackluster. When Sims 3 packs finally dropped in price I had picked a bunch up and played it for a couple years... And when I returned to 2, all the sims felt so alive again. I haven't played more than the base game for 4 and it feels even more lackluster to me than 3 ever did... And I ditched 3 for 2 even after I had all the expansions. Make of that what you will.

Sims 2 loads faster than Sims 4 for me. Without even going in to detail, I'm choosing TS2.
For me it has to do with how the game 'feels' as a whole. There are a lot of factors involved;
1. Era
2. Development Team
3. Artist
4. Mindsets
5. Vision

These are just 100% on point with TS2 for me.
TS2 for me will always be superior for me.

Even if I wouldn't have played TS2 to this day and I would discover it, I would probably still choose TS2.
Yeah yeah... Nostalgia blah blah. No, I simply think that TS4 is generic and shallow... feels like a mobile game to me but with updated graphics.

I also think that they are missing the point of simulation, TS2 is pretty basic in it's core but has really deep meaningful gameplay.

Music... ah yeah, if the game is good but music is sheit I won't enjoy it, there is that. For me, everything has to be on point.
Luckily TS2 has a lot of great music! And you can even turn individual songs off/on, or even get TS1 music in

The game overall feels more realistic while in many ways it's not! But it has a lot of little things, interactions to make it feel realistic in a way but keep the good balance between fun and realism.

People say TS4 is like TS2 in its art style since "they are both cartoonish", while it's not. TS2 has the most detailed objects in the franchise. The sims themself yeah, can feel cartoonish.
But in TS2 beta sims themself were more 'shaded' and felt more realistic, which can still be accomplished by using the radiance mod.

The development team around ~2003 at Maxis were so ambitious and you can tell... with everything you see in-game.

After all it feels like a full fleshed -PC- game at base and really expanded with the expansions, they all kept in realistic but had goofy, fun, fantasy stuff but it felt more that those were kept in the background.
Those goofy, fun, fantasy stuff feels more embedded in the base gameplay in TS4 and is involved highly.

I can go on with this for hours... I'll just end it here.

I think you shouldn't listen to people like me, but just play the game and see for yourself.

You probably think by now, you just said you weren't going in to detail, while I didn't. I kept it pretty general xD

The best addition to Sims 4 was released for free - the toddler pack. It's not the best because it added toddlers, but because said toddlers added more depth and variation than any other expansion pack. The toddler traits are actually meaningful, unlike the traits for the older Sims that don't have a major effect on a Sim's personality. I've bought Get to Work, Get Together, Parenthood, Dine Out and Vampires. They all did add playability to the game, but they're hindered by the limited AI. The Sims are shallow, and it's clear by now that nothing is going to change that. Once the novelty of the packs wears off, there's not much to fall back on. TBH, part of the reason I bought all of those packs was because I wanted to convert the objects to TS2. And even the object development is lazy - the team has a habit of releasing the same objects in different expansion packs, with a different texture.

There are two things that happened in my game after buying all these packs - 1. Bob caught his wife, Eliza cheating in their home. He was mad, but he also thought that Eliza's bedroom was pretty. He got a Nicely Decorated buff that overrode his anger. The boyfriend stayed at the house, and they all had dinner together. 2. Two of my playables were uncontrolled on a community lot, and the son attacked his mother. immediately after the fight, they started talking like nothing ever happened. TS4 made a big deal about having emotions, but Sims 2's emotions are much more realistic.

Heheh in Sims 2, you'll get to the point that if you stay on a public lot for long enough, certain townies will be at each others' throats - constantly. Poke, poke, shove, slap, poke, shove, poke, shove, slap, attack, poke, slap, shove, attack... until you see multiple fights during a visit to the grocery or clothing store. Kind of amusing though.

It's good, as you should always ask different sides of player groups: those who play it (preferring it) or the other who prefer the other sim title, oppose to just one. TS2 fanbase would pretty much (the majority of them) be against TS4 for obvious reasons, while TS4 obviously majority are hyped about it.

I would honestly ask (4) x (1) y, (2) z and (3) d what they think about X (TS4). Just to get perspective from every player from the franchise to get the conclusion on what the game is like and from there decide whether to risk trying it out (to play) or not.

I prefer TS2 over the two others. Not sure why, I just do. I feel it's very storytelling and photoshoot friendly, possibly because I've played it since 2006, and I've got so many mods for it that's half the fun (that, and making new CC). Vanilla it might be a little boring, but modded I'm very happy with it. I also prefer the neighborhood setup, and feel it's less likely to bork up. Despite not having an open neighborhood, TS2 has the best neighborhood control, in that you can play as any households as you have room for, and the sims can interact.

I like a lot of aspects about TS3, except the look of unmodded sims (which is more than half the deal, really). But the game has also loaded very slow for me, and I ended up having troubles installing the last pack, and never bothered getting around to fix it. I sort of feel I'd have to get into storytelling mode and download a lot of CC to truly appreciate TS3, but never quite got to that point. The game is also very borked, and I can't keep a saved game for more than 10 saves. I also don't like te default one household per save thing.

As for TS4 I've had some fun with it and do have it installed, but I feel it's a bit too empty. There's tons of stuffpacks but hardly any EPs, and they've gotten to the point where SPs need EPs now, and it's jsut a bit too much. I easily get bored with it, and hardly bother getting CC because even an unmodded game has so many issues I can't bother getting mods to fix them all (sims flying around naked and/or invisible all the time, fast forward making sims get stuck, etc.). I'm also not too fond of the overly cartoonish style and the silly walks, constantly changing emotions that make little sense, and all the "overacting" of the sims. The most annoying thing is that neighborhoods are so limited. They look nice ingame, but they're completely useless. I like to have full control over the neighborhood and house placement, and TS4 doesn't give me that. I feel I'm mostly limited to one family at a time.

The collect/find/making deal TS3 and TS4 have got going is fun to begin with, but after a very short while it started getting old. I enjoyed it in TS3, but by the time TS4 came out the collecting stuff felt old, overused and repetitive. You just go around doing the same things over and over again. Even if the two others offer some more things to do, I feel TS2 is a bit more open and less controlled by the game makers.

I have been buying TS3 EPs when they are on sale on Steam so I've managed to buy quite a few now and have been trying it out on and off. The difference for me is that I can't even remember the names of the TS3 sims I've made (except the dogs - I really like the dogs) but I can remember the life-stories of 100% of the 550 plus playable residents of Little Carping and could tell you a long story if you picked a name at random. That, for me, is the difference. I also own TS4 and I can't even remember opening the game though I know I have - it says so on Origin. The day I opened TS2 in September 2004, I was hooked, never played TS1 again (though I loved that game to death) and am still here 13 1/2 years later.

I like the look of TS3 - everything except the sims themselves and really like the open world. But I find it an uninteresting game to play.

TS3 is fun. But I'm always drawn back to TS2.

Can't add anything on the debate, really, as I haven't played TS4 myself. But if you want to get a good runthrough of the expansion and stuff packs, look up LazyGameReviews - and check out some of his other videos at the same time.

My experience playing The Sims 4 was being so happy with the CAS and all the options, and then getting into the game and immediately being so bored. In The Sims 2 you can have a sim angry with another sim, while in love with a second one, and both of those emotions show, they don't cancel each other like they do in The Sims 4, where emotions feel like they're a feature being showcased to the player, istead of being part of the sims. I've seen people in this forum in another thread saying that if you like playing rotations you should go with the Sims 2, otherwise if you like progression move to 4, but I don't play rotations in all of my neighborhoods, and go through all of the hassle of modding and cheating to progress my neighborhood just to stick with The Sims 2, and I'm far from moving into 4.
The thing is, when I'm playing The Sims 2, it never goes through my mind that the sims are programmed to do everything they're doing, I forget it, I get immersed, to me they seem almost alive, while when I'm playing TS4 I find myself trying to force my brain to forget that they're just programmed all the time.

I mentioned what I thought about TS3 in comparison to TS2, and I find it somewhat disheartening that TS4 has many of the same pitfalls TS3 has and in some aspects, even worse versions of the same problems. This is about TS2 and TS4, however, so I'll leave TS3 out, and it's not like the previous iterations' flaws excuse TS4 of anything, especially because it's a more recent game with a history it could've learned from. My brother has TS4, which he only uses to make sims anyway, and I tried it out myself when the base game first came out. I haven't played in a while, however, so maybe some of the things I'll describe here have already been fixed either by the developers or by mods (though now that I've revisited the official Feedback section, it seems more the latter or not at all). Some I know have been fixed but still leave a sour taste in my mouth.

Features I like from TS4:
1. CAS (still would like sliders too though and CASt would've been nice)
2. the ability to move entire rooms, drag walls around
3. some of the clothes
4. some of the Build and Buy items
5. Toddlers, some aspects of Parenthood for family play
6. Separated skills (painting is separate from violin, for example)

Concerns about TS4:

1. The AI swings between lackluster and overboard.
There's a thread over at the official forums that showcases almost all of my problems with the TS4 AI. In fact, many of its highlights are still applicable to the current gameplay after 3 years.

Early on, I've had sims cheat on their spouses right in front of them, only for the latter to show no reaction whatsoever. They somewhat mitigated this, but the lack of a memory and training system still makes what are supposed to be life-changing events almost inconsequential. You can move the cheated spouse into a well-decorated room to shift their mood to happy, wait for a while, and they'll pretty much forget the whole incident. On the other hand, there's the excessive push-ups, hugging, and musical chairs.

Besides the sheer domination of the Happy mood, the Flirty emotion is downright too powerful. If sims could flirt with tables, they definitely would - that's how strong it is. Once it hits, I have to go out of my way to keep the sims away from each other because they don't have a filter at all. I had a mod to stop the autonomous romantic greet because my sim started flooding the entire town with her thrown petals. She doesn't even have the Romantic trait or aspiration.

I can't even go to gatherings and/or nightclubs out of fear that an emotional orgy will happen AGAIN. I don't want to relive that, but it's also just as frustrating when the UI rapidly changes due to the conflicting emotions fighting for dominance on your home lot. I'm not sure why, but it also feels as if sims can't tell the difference between a family member and anyone else and are just vaguely aware that there's a younger sim living in the same household. It seems to be the lack of relationship checks though, as I mentioned.

2. Traits don't matter.
I mentioned this in another thread, but I'm not a fan of traits. It turns sims into wacky oversimplifications and less like simulations of people, whose traits are more like sliders than anything. I can understand perhaps Vegetarian and the like, though not Sloppy and Neat, which are better represented by a scale. If they must have traits, I'd rather not dispense with sliders for personality points. The Wants and Fears, Memory, and Chemistry systems are my favorite aspects of TS2, and I wish that they never dispensed with them.

The traits don't have a significant impact on the sims, so I've found that the sim you spent so much time tinkering with in CAS is just like everyone else in the game regardless of their given traits. It came to a point where I modded some of my sims to perpetually be in a state of a single emotion to simulate at least a smidgen of personality - the always focused scientist, the constantly playful musician, and whatnot. Needless to say, it didn't help much. I don't see any such distinction in TS4 because they're ruled by their emotions and even then, emotions don't always strongly drive them to meaningful behaviors. I might see a hotheaded sim do his silly stomping outside, but he's as equally likely to hug or pummel anyone.

3. The specific checklists for tasks
There are several aspirations, yet I'm locked into following specific steps to fulfill them. To achieve Big Happy Family, I should read to a child for 2 hours, socialize with my child 10 times, spend 1000 on kids' items, and a whole bunch of other tasks. I might have a bit of leeway in how these objectives are fulfilled, but those sure are specific and odd instructions.

Then again, you don't need to fulfill their whims and aspirations. Goodness knows I never gave in to the pool light obsession or fulfilled a whim to flirt with someone just because I'm near a friendly relationship, which is apparently the perfect reason to engage in amorous actions. Never mind that your lover is at the front yard. That makes things worse depending on your playstyle, however - if you're the type to take wants and fears into account, you might find it difficult to interpret the whims. Nothing game-changing happens if you don't fulfill their aspirations and whims either, so I don't understand the point of it all, unlike TS2's permaplats.

Some of the instructions don't even make sense - so I'm supposed to harass tourists to progress as a Scientist? And then I need to shower afterwards, then lather, rinse, and repeat, for the other playable careers, parties, and whatnot. Right then...

4. World restrictions
Whereas TS2 is versatile in the types of worlds and lots you can make, TS4 has distinct graphics and animations that make it difficult to portray other types of neighborhoods and stories. The sims have unnatural facial expressions that are generally happy despite the fact that the UI claims that they're sad, and the locked-in worlds don't help at all. It's come to the point that you can easily tell which town they're in if they're outside or by the window.

Graphics-wise, it's sometimes difficult to tell what an object is made of. Is it wood? Is it plastic? If you want to make a themed hood or house, this might inconvenience you. (I also miss moving hair...) It's too bad that the objects also have set presets, unlike the previous games where you can recolor the frame separately from the beddings. You'll find that many of the TS2 players here have a wide variety of neighborhoods and styles. Unless they play premade hoods/lots, the scenery is different every time, adding a personal touch to the pictures they post about their peaceful towns, post-apocalyptic dystopias, bustling cities, and whatnot. You're a bit limited in TS4 due to the art style and set neighborhoods.

Community lots are defined by checklists - like 2 chess boards to qualify as a park. Such a decision makes me feel as if sims are specifically coded to enagage only in specific actions as they enter the lot. I prefer that my sims make actions in accordance to their histories, personalities, and backgrounds more than the objects on the lot, so it ties into the AI limitations as well. If I wanted a hot tub and one bookshelf in my TS2 library, then so be it - it won't stop me.

Apartments are basically just houses on top of buildings, and they aren't particularly customizable, not to mention that you have to go through loading screens to visit neighbors. In TS2, you can knock on the door and if the resident doesn't mind, their apartment becomes visible and playable to you without a loading screen. I can't move lots to be closer to or farther away from each other, nor can I redecorate outside of the set lots. My gardener suddenly lost her job because I chose to change her hairstyle, and NPCs don't spawn on food stalls, so I can't simulate markets in the way that I'd like... It makes me feel caged and playing someone else's game.

5. Prioritization and depth of features
TS4 has a few "features" that don't make sense to me, and I'm never sure if it's a bug or an intended feature anymore. Their touted "emotions" are already one heavy point against them. They constantly create townies only to just as frequently delete them later on. The game randomized my sims' clothes when they go out to nightclubs when I'd already designated wardrobes for my sims that could've been used instead. Is that not less work than generating new outfits?

What made them decide to waste programming time and energy so that our sims will have randomly-generated, sexually-incompatible relationships that make no sense whatsoever? Rotational play is difficult because my playables suddenly forget their own parents when they've been living together the whole time, and I have to regularly re-introduce myself to my coworkers - and that's if they don't keep switching them for the townies. I had to resort to MC-CC to stop some of this nonsense.

Ghosts are just recolored sims with a few extra animations, lacking much to be distinct, fleshed-out life states. I'd rather be shown how a conversation is going instead of seeing a bar telling me it's apparent awkward while they're happily giggling together with a flirty mood.

There are emotional defecations and urinations and talking toilets that provide no gameplay substance whatsoever but elevators are without animations and you have to do almost everything in the Medicine career yourself because nobody else will. By default and not as an additional, optional feature, they created hamsters to go on adventures, yet they didn't improve on the existing frogs and fish already in-game.

Just about every new addition to the game contains more and more ways to manipulate the sims' already aggravating emotions. The retail system from Get to Work is still broken and has even been reused for the veterinarian career. Builders don't have much in the way of tools - we don't even have multi-level foundations. Storytellers and several others are limited by the worlds, game mechanics, and poor AI.

Wow, that was long, but I figured you might want some details. Maybe I should put this under a spoiler.... Of course, it's up to you to decide whether you want to buy TS4 or not. I'd second the other members' suggestions to look up LGR and read through the official forums' feedback section to see the game's status. I also agree with SneakyWingPhoenix that EPs and SPs probably won't add much to the depth of gameplay because the foundation of the game itself is quite lacking - the holes of the base will be there regardless of whatever additions you put on it.

Again, don't get me wrong - there's no such thing as a perfect game and all of the games in the franchise have their faults. There are mods to fix mistakes in both games that should've been corrected by EA. I'm more disappointed than anything about the state of the game, but I have TS2 and other games that deserve my money and attention. TS2's age only serves to highlight its merits.

From what I am reading here, I am honestly seeing the same impression that I have myself: Sims 4 is prettier, but the AI just isn't up to par. Sims 2 is outdated technically, but the focus is on the social interactions and the storytelling.

Don't get me wrong: I loved Sims 3. But I'm definitely seeing a pattern in how the focus shifted in that game to Look! Shiny! instead of sustained playability. A pattern that seems to be continuing into 4. I may fire up the vanilla Sims 4 game just once more to prove to myself that it just isn't what I want, but I honestly think I've found my home with 2.

The fact that this many people play and care and create for a game that's 15 years old, that's probably the best recommendation of them all. You folks are awesome.

I hate how currently you can't make your own worlds in Sims 4. They really need to bring back custom worlds and allow you to include or exclude whichever worlds you want. Also... if you already have playables they should allow you to skip CAS. Or has someone found a way to create custom worlds from scratch? 'Cause that would be flippin' awesome!

All you need is just take an eye look at the feedback of TS4 in the official forums and you'll understand what a hot mess that game is.

Why can't they listen to the feedback? I mean... listening to feedback will help you improve, right? They're turning into this typical animu artist who can't take a flippin' critique.

It's not that they can't take critique, they just phase through it. It's a corrupted company, that doesn't give a flip about the quality of their product. However, some members of the guru team (thank god SGDrake left), thought a few did and took the critisicm personally.

They care more about the stockholders than the customers.

I don't think it's that they can't. Or maybe it's not solely that they can't. After the Sim City debacle, they realized they were producing something that was going to be a massive failure, but they were too cheap to start from scratch, so they changed course midway through and built onto a weak engine that was unsuitable for a classic Sims game. Unfortunately, this didn't work very well.

To me, The Sims 2 is proudly a child of The Sims Series. The Sims 4 is just a completely different game. I would not call it Sims at all.
I guess, for anyone who never experienced any of the sims game, playing TS4 must be super entertaining.
But for me who started playing when The Sims was a thing...I cannot really say I enjoy it, as I can't see it as an improvement of the game I like. It's just, another game.
I think I got stuck on that feeling of awweness that it was, to jump from TS original to TS2, and just never got off of it.

I also think that the sims in TS2 are very intelligent, more humane, and can express their emotions more naturally. They are not "frozen" for a second before each action, unlike sims in TS3 and TS4. When I first started TS2 after a break, I expected to see the characters who will have to point out every action, and that their intellect will be primitive. But during the game I saw that they can live independently of the player. For a normal existence, they do not need a player. Stronger than I was impressed by the fact that when in the game came in the morning, the characters woke up and the child went to brush his teeth, without my instructions. After TS3 and TS4, this is very pleasantly surprising. It was this family. Baldwin family

I know that sims in TS2 are pieces of code, files lying in the neighborhood folder. But the developers in all possible ways tried to show that this is not so. And they succeeded. Sims in TS3 and TS4 are arranged and behave like characters in a regular game. If they do not have a specific character trait associated with something, then they will not react to it.

Of course, "moodlets" and "character traits" are easier to program. It is much more difficult to come up with a complex personality system, like TS2. And it's hard to create animation and use it as the only tool for expressing all the feelings and emotions of the sim, and do not resort to simplifications like "moodlets" and "emotions" as in TS4.

I have played Sims 2 without any lack of enthusiasm for over 10 years. I love my Sims and their generational histories. I played Sims 3 for a while but hated the way they looked, especially toddlers, and was soon bored. I actually thought about getting Sims 4 on console (because I didn't want to tarnish my Sims 2 computer with it) and asked over at the Sims 4 forum what it was like. I got such a lacklustre response that I gave up on the idea completely. I love the amazing, amazing cc and mods you can get for Sims 2 which constantly make the game exciting to play.
I think you've got your answer.

I actually love the moodlets of TS3. Wish it was more integrated into TS2 with memories or the other way around with TS3.

You do realize you are asking this on a die-hard Sims 2 board right? Or maybe that was your point. Only people here tend to get annoyed by such threads.

Yes Sims 2 is the best one of the series. There are two main reasons, 1 is the sims themselves. Sims 2 sims have soul. They are engaging, expressive and have fine nuances that all the other sims lack. It's difficult how to explain this fully, you will only see it by playing each game with autonomy on and also by taking your sims out and about. If you play with free will off and mostly send your sim to work and tell them what to do every step of the way you may miss this aspect entirely.

The second main reason is the sandbox play. Sims 2 can be moulded into what you want. You want sims who live in a cave who eat Bronto burgers? Or in a bright purple alien landscape, you can. The restrictions only come about if the CC isn't available but most things can be achieved with little to break immersion. Your cavemen sims won't have mobile/cell phone ringing on them to break your immersion.

Sims 3 and 4 can be entertaining, but it lacks those important aspects. It feels more like I am playing a game, but sims 2 feels more like I am playing a life simulator. I don't know about anybody else but I also find the game controls clunky in 3 and 4. I find it harder on my hand to direct the sims, turn the camera and simply play the game. To me sims 4 feels like it's aimed at children.